The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart Read Online Free PDF Page A

were other sounds, though. What the hell were they doing?
    Oh.
    I knew what they were doing. A platform bed doesn’t have springs to squeak, so I didn’t have that particular auditory clue, but even without it the conclusion was unmistakable. While I languished in the closet, these clowns were making love.
    I had only myself to blame. If only I hadn’t dawdled, wandering around the apartment, checking the fridge, counting the paper clips in the leather box on the desk. If only I hadn’t held the silver-framed photo in my hand, turning it this way and that, trying to figure out why it was familiar. If only I had behaved professionally, for God’s sake, I could have been in and out before the two of them turned up, with the portfolio locked away in my attaché case and a fat fee mine for the collecting. I’d have been out the door and out of the building and—
    Wait a minute.
    Where was the attaché case?
    It certainly wasn’t in the closet with me. Had I left it alongside the desk, or somewhere else in the apartment? I couldn’t remember. Had I even brought it to the apartment? Had I set it down while I picked the locks, or tucked it between my knees?
    I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Well, had I had it with me when I entered the Boccaccio at Captain Hoberman’s side? I tried to visualize the whole process—up in the elevator, saying a few words to Mr. Weeks in 12-J, then hotfooting it down four flights of stairs. It didn’t seem to me that I’d been carrying anything, except for five pounds I could have done without, but it was hard to be sure.
    Had I left it home? I remembered picking it up, but I could have put it down again. The question was, had I had it when I left my apartment?
    The answer, I decided, was yes. Because I could recall having it in my hand when I hailed Max Fiddler’s cab for the second time that night, and balanced on my knees when he asked if I was on my way to a business appointment.
    Had I left it in his cab? I had his card, or his Chinese herbalist’s card, anyway, with Max’s phone number on it. There was nothing I needed in the attaché case. There was, in fact, nothing in it at all. It was a good case and I’d owned it long enough to get attached (or even attachéd) to it, but I certainlycould live a rich and rewarding life without it if I had to.
    But suppose he brought it back of his own accord. He knew where I lived, having dropped me off and picked me up at the same location. I didn’t think I’d mentioned my name, or Bill Thompson’s name either, but he could describe me to the doorman, or—
    What the hell was I working myself up about? I was going stir-crazy in the damned closet. It was an empty attaché case with no identification on it and nothing incriminating about it, and if I got it back that was great, and if I didn’t that was fine, and who cared?
    Anyway, I’d had it with me when I got out of the cab. Because I could remember switching it from one hand to the other in order to ring Hugo Candlemas’s doorbell. Which meant I’d probably left it there when Hoberman and I set out on our fool’s errand, unless I’d left it at the Wexford Castle, and I didn’t think I had. I had almost certainly left it up in Candlemas’s apartment, in which case I could get it back when I went there to drop off the portfolio and collect my money.
    Assuming I ever got out of the closet.
    Outside, the fires of love were but glowing embers, to judge from the sound track. Maybe, I thought, I could just leave. Maybe they wouldn’t notice.
    Right.
    I wondered what Bogart would do.
    In the past fifteen days I had watched thirty movies, all of them either starring or featuring Humphrey Bogart. Some of them were films that everybody knows, like The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca and The African Queen, and others were movies that nobody’s ever heard of, like Invisible Stripes and Men Are Such Fools. My companion at these outings, sitting beside me and sharing my popcorn, seemed to believe